20240906 Friday, September 6, 2024. Arrival in Calgary

20240906 Friday, September 6, 2024. Arrival in Calgary

Despite the constant drone of the air conditioner and lumpy bed, we managed a few hours of sleep and took a quick Uber to the SeaTac Departures lane.  The Uber was a very clean Tesla Model Y.  It was significantly roomier than the Model 3 and had no trouble getting our two large suitcases and two carry-ons into its trunk.  The driver also showed up early so we were able to get to the airport at 3:50am.  There were no lines at the Air Canada check in, and the agent allowed us to check our carry on bags as well so we won’t have to deal with them until we arrive in Calgary.  

We got to the TSA Pre-Check entrance at 3:55am and discovered they don’t even open the lines until 4am, so we were at the head of a line that began to form shortly.  Once 4am rolled around, we rolled pretty much straight through the screening.  

Our boarding passes say we have access to the airport lounge because we are booked business class, but the lounge at SeaTac wasn’t open, so no early breakfast for us at SeaTac.  

The plane from Seattle to Vancouver was a DeHavilland turboprop and it was less than half full.  It was a short, if scenic, flight over Puget Sound, the San Juan Island and the Canadian Gulf Islands.  There was just enough low level clouds over the north Puget Sound that it obscured Everett and Whidbey Island. 

 

On arrival in Vancouver, we did have to go through customs.  There was a separate line for Nexus pass holders, which we used and there was nobody using any of those kiosks.  We thought that would be an advantage for us, but the Nexus kiosk wasn’t able to capture our pictures for some reason.  We ended up having to wait for a customs agent to manually verify our faces with our passports, but it didn’t take more than 10 minutes to get through customs, and we didn’t have to claim our luggage before going through customs.  Since our bags were checked through to Calgary, that would have been a problem.  

When we did arrive at our terminal for the Calgary flight, we were able to check into and use the Air Canada lounge.  So we had breakfast after all.  

They had yogurt, fruit, oatmeal, omelets, sausage, potatoes, pastries and breads.  There were also cans of soft drinks, coffee and espresso machines, but the beer taps were locked up until 11am.  The lounge was pretty crowded with business flyers, but there are a fair number of retirees like ourselves as well.  Since we had a 3 hour layover, it was nice to have access to the lounge, which was more comfortable than the main terminal. 

The flight from Vancouver to Calgary was only about an hour long.  We were impressed by how terrible Vancouver traffic looked like from the air with miles long lines of red brake lights easily visible from the air along arterials leading into Vancouver.  

Lunch was not as good as Dairy Queen's $7 Chicken Strip deal.

Seeing the Canadian Rockies from above was quite impressive. Then suddenly, the mountains disappeared and were replaced with prairie land as the plane began its descent into Calgary.

A Viking representative in a red shirt gathered up 6 passengers from our flight at the baggage claim.  He wasn’t there when the bags first started to show up, so Janet went searching up and down the baggage claim and out to the pick up curbs looking for him, but when we circled back to the baggage claim, the representative and the other 4 passengers were wondering where we had disappeared to.  

We had a comfortable trip in a large Sprinter van from the Calgary airport into downtown which took just under a half hour.  Our hotel, the Fairmont Palliser, is situated downtown very close to the base of the Calgary Tower.  This is a grand old hotel which has been well maintained and upgraded.  

The long hallways reminded us of the hotel in the Shining, but we didn’t see any ghosts wandering the hallways.  There couldn’t be more contrast between the Rodeway Inn we stayed at last night and this virtual palace.  

We met Carmen, our Viking concierge who will be escorting us on the Rocky Mountaineer from Calgary to Vancouver.  

She lives in Calgary and has done many post cruise tours which start in Vancouver and end in Calgary, but this is the last cruise of this Alaska season for the Viking Orion and it will be headed across the North Pacific to Japan.  This is her first time doing the trip from Calgary to Vancouver.  

We got a recommendation for the Silver Dragon restaurant in Chinatown, which has been a Calgary institution since 1966.  

We did a scenic walking tour of downtown Calgary, seeing an Olympics plaza dating from the 1988 Winter Olympics, Temporary memorial to Indian Residential School victims, City Hall, the Riverwalk along the Bow River and ended up at the Silver Dragon.  

We had Dim Sum, which was tasty and well prepared. We discovered a new dish- Rice Rolls in XO sauce, which was very delicious.  These were thin sheets of rice noodles rolled up into cylinders in XO sauce with peppers and bean sprouts.  We also had some different dumplings and steamed Chinese broccoli with Hoisin sauce to round out the meal.  

After dinner, we continued out walk through downtown Calgary, learning about the history of Chinese immigrants at a riverfront park memorial and then walked through a large pedestrian mall lined with bars and restaurants on our way back to the hotel.  

Praire hare, much larger than our cotton tail rabbits.

We walked past a car that apparently had weathered a bad hail storm.  Maybe with all the divots like a golf ball, it might actually be more aerodynamic now.

Besides the Calgary Tower, there are a couple other stand out architectural buildings in the Calgary skyline.  

The weather in Calgary was very nice with clear blue skies and temperatures in the 80’s to a high of 90˚F before cooling back down into the mid 70’s in the evening. 

Tomorrow we have to have our suitcases packed and ready for pick up at 7:30am with Breakfast in the Fairmont’s restaurant between 6am and 9am.  Then we depart for Banff National Park via bus.